Flowers

Silky Leaf Grevillea

Calotropis; Kings Crown

Calytrix extsipulata; Turkey Bush

Solanum Cunninghamii

Starflower Shrub

White grevillea

Hibiscus Leptocladus

A few more of the endless range of flowers

THE WET

Evidenced in all our travels in the Kimberley was the effect of the Wet of 2010 / 2011. This had been one of the biggest in years,

The recent Wet season in the Kimberley region of Western Australia has caused Australia's largest (in area) freshwater lake, Lake Argyle, to overflow. 

The dam has reached more than its capacity of 10,763 gigalitres (it was 170% capacity at its peak ) and water was flowing 37cm over the spillway and at a rate of 58 cubic metres per second.

That's enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 43 seconds, or Sydney Harbour every 12 hours  And it hasn't stopped! Unfortunately the water runs into the sea and there is no plan to send it anywhere else, due to costs.

We stopped to look at the Ord River flowing over the Ivanhoe Crossing. 

The road is the Old Wyndham road and now not a main highway, but a route to popular fishing. Well not this Year! This flow has continued all year since the rain stopped and it will not be opened this year!

Stating the obvious for the not too bright!

The river in full force, been running since February!

 Ivanhoe Crossing, built in 1954 on a rocky outcrop to cross the Ord river, was featured in the film Australia when Lady  Sarah Ashley is brought to Faraway Downs station. 

The crossing is close to where the Duracks constructed the Ivanhoe Station homestead.

The Ord river is enclosed by the Argyle Dam and so it is the outlet from the dam.

As a result there are flowers in abundance everywhere!

Mulla Mulla

Kimberley Heath

The Kimberley

Cockburn Range Near El Questro

I have always planned to return to Halls Creek in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, where I worked for two years 1970-1972. And this year it happened.
Celia and I went on a trip to the Kimberley from Broome. We flew directly to Broome from Melbourne (only two direct flights a week) on 6th July and stayed there 2 days before joining a tour with Kimberley Wild. http://www.kimberleywild.com.au/kimberley_explorer.htm

Celia on the East Beach at Cape Leveque

Manning Falls

We planned a 3 day trip North West from Broome to Cape Leveque, and then a 9 days loop up the Gibb River Road to Kununurra, then down to Purnululu (the Bungle Bungles) and on to Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and back to Broome.

The legendary Gibb River Road, a 660 km dirt track right through the wild heart of the Kimberley, that leaves the main Northern Highway past the turnoff to Derby was created for cattle stations to transport their cattle and was never intended as a tourist road. It's reputation as a tough route has attraction for the adventurer today. The trip is still touted as one of the last serious adventures in Australia, a drive through a very remote area where all sorts of dangers loom, an undertaking that requires guts and four wheel driving experience... well maybe not really, but lots of 4 WD take up the challenge.

Conditions depend on the time for year, and the completion of maintenance grading work. Travel is only recommended once the roads has been graded after the wet season (around May) until end of October. Most of the winding sections of road passing over the ranges are bitumenised, and nearly all the creek and river crossings have concrete bottoms, but it is  a rough road of corrugations.

Ivanhoe Crossing,Unlikely to be opened at all this year!

This year the Wet season was one of the heaviest and the longest with water still pouring down the creeks and crossings. All along the road are side trips to waterfalls and gorges. To which we made several side trips